Library Company of Philadelphia
In honor of Election Day in the United States, we #Flashback to 1860 with this political cartoon titled The National Game, Three “Outs” and One “Run”, which compares the results of the 1860 presidential election with a completed baseball game influenced by the candidates’ position on the extension of slavery.
The winner, Lincoln, representing the “Wide Awake Club,” holds a rail-shaped bat labeled “Equal Rights and Free Territory,” and stands on “Home Base,” giving pointers to his competitors: Constitutional Unionist John Bell of the “Union Club” with his “Fusion” bat; Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas of the “Little Giant Club” with his “Non-Intervention” bat; and Southern Democrat John C. Breckenridge of the “Disunion Club”, holding his “Slavery Extension” bat, plugs his nose as a skunk sprays at him.
Speaking in baseball terms, Lincoln declares “you must have ‘a good bat’ and strike a ‘fair ball’ to make a ‘clean score’ & a ‘home run’”. The other players respond with Bell crying “foul”; Douglas pondering his “fusion” not putting a “short stop” to the president-elect’s career; and Breckenridge whining that he shall leave for Kentucky as they have all been “skunk’d.”